THIS  MISERY  OF 


^1     BOOTS 


H.G.WELLS 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


EX  LIBRIS 
ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


THIS 
MISERY  of  BOOTS 


BY 

H.  G.  WELLS 

Author  of     Socialism  and  the  Family, ' '      In  the 

Days  of  the  Comet,  "      A  Modern 

Utopia, ' '  etc. 

9 


BOSTON 
THE   BALL   PUBLISHING  CO. 

1908 


THIS  MISERY  OF 
BOOTS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  WORLD  AS  BOOTS  AND 
SUPERSTRUCTURE 

it TT  does  not  do,"  said  a  friend  of 
*  mine,  "to  think  about  boots."  For 
my  own  part,  I  have  always  been  particu- 
larly inclined  to  look  at  boots,  and  think 
about  them.  I  have  an  odd  idea  that 
most  general  questions  can  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  foot-wear — which  is  perhaps 
why  cobblers  are  often  such  philosophical 
men.  Accident  it  may  be,  gave  me  this 
persuasion.  A  very  considerable  part  of 
my  childhood  was  spent  in  an  under- 
ground kitchen ;  the  window  opened  upon 
5 


8K0553 


6  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

a  bricked-in  space,  surmounted  by  a  grat- 
ing before  my  father's  shop  window.  So 
that,  when  I  looked  out  of  the  window, 
instead  of  seeing — as  children  of  a  higher 
upbringing  would  do — the  heads  and 
bodies  of  people,  I  saw  their  under  side. 
I  got  acquainted  indeed  with  all  sorts  of 
social  types  as  boots  simply,  indeed,  as 
the  soles  of  boots ;  and  only  subsequently, 
and  with  care,  have  I  fitted  heads,  bodies, 
and  legs  to  these  pediments. 

There  would  come  boots  and  shoes  (no 
doubt  holding  people)  to  stare  at  the 
shop,  finicking,  neat  little  women's  boots, 
good  sorts  and  bad  sorts,  fresh  and  new, 
worn  crooked  in  the  tread,  patched  or 
needing  patching;  men's  boots,  clumsy 
and  fine,  rubber  shoes,  tennis  shoes,  go- 
loshes. Brown  shoes  I  never  beheld — it 
was  before  that  time ;  but  I  have  seen  pat- 
tens.    Boots  used  to  come  and  commune 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  7 

at  the  window,  duets  that  marked  their 
emotional  development  by  a  restlessness 
or  a  kick.  .  .  .  But  anyhow,  that  ex- 
plains my  preoccupation  with  boots. 

But  my  friend  did  not  think  it  did,  to 
think  about  boots. 

My  friend  was  a  realistic  novelist,  and 
a  man  from  whom  hope  had  departed. 
I  cannot  tell  you  how  hope  had  gone  out 
of  his  life;  some  subtle  disease  of  the  soul 
had  robbed  him  at  last  of  any  enterprise, 
or  belief  in  coming  things;  and  he  was 
trying  to  live  the  few  declining  years  that 
lay  before  him  in  a  sort  of  bookish  com- 
fort, among  surroundings  that  seemed 
peaceful  and  beautiful,  by  not  thinking 
of  things  that  were  painful  and  cruel. 
And  we  met  a  tramp  who  limped  along 
the  lane. 

"Chafed  heel,"  I  said,  when  we  had 
parted  from  him  again;   "and  on   these 


8  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

pebbly  byways  no  man  goes  barefooted." 
My  friend  winced;  and  a  little  silence 
came  between  us.  We  were  both  recall- 
ing things;  and  then  for  a  time,  when  we 
began  to  talk  again,  until  he  would  have 
no  more  of  it,  we  rehearsed  the  miseries 
of  boots. 

We  agreed  that  to  a  very  great  ma- 
jority of  people  in  this  country  boots  are 
constantly  a  source  of  distress,  giving 
pain  and  discomfort,  causing  trouble, 
causing  anxiety.  We  tried  to  present 
the  thing  in  a  concrete  form  to  our  own 
minds  by  hazardous  statistical  inventions. 
"At  the  present  moment,"  said  I,  "one 
person  in  ten  in  these  islands  is  in  discom- 
fort through  boots." 

My  friend  thought  it  was  nearer  one 
in  five. 

"In  the  life  of  a  poor  man  or  a  poor 
man's  wife,  and  still  more  in  the  lives  of 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  9 

their  children,  this  misery  of  the  hoot 
occurs  and  recurs — every  year  so  many 
days." 

We  made  a  sort  of  classification  of 
these  troubles. 

There  is  the  trouble  of  the  new 
boot. 

(i)  They  are  made  of  some  bad,  un- 
ventilated  material;  and  "draw  the  feet," 
as  people  say. 

(ii)  They  do  not  fit  exactly.  Most 
people  have  to  buy  ready-made  boots; 
they  cannot  afford  others,  and,  in  the  sub- 
missive philosophy  of  poverty,  they  wear 
them  to  "get  used"  to  them.  This  gives 
you  the  little-toe  pinch,  the  big-toe  pinch, 
the  squeeze  and  swelling  across  the  foot; 
and,  as  a  sort  of  chronic  development  of 
these  pressures,  come  corns  and  all  the 
misery  of  corns.  Children's  feet  get  dis- 
torted for  good  by  this  method  of  fitting 


10  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

the  human  being  to  the  thing;  and  a  vast 
number  of  people  in  the  world  are,  as  a 
consequence  of  this,  ashamed  to  appear 
barefooted.  (I  used  to  press  people  who 
came  to  see  me  in  warm  pleasant  weather 
to  play  Badminton  barefooted  on  the 
grass — a  delightful  thing  to  do — until  I 
found  out  that  many  were  embarrassed  at 
the  thought  of  displaying  twisted  toes 
and  corns,  and  such-like  disfigurements.) 

(iii)  The  third  trouble  of  new  boots  is 
this :  they  are  unseasoned  and  in  bad  con- 
dition, and  so  they  squeak  and  make 
themselves  an  insulting  commentary  on 
one's  ways. 

But  these  are  but  trifling  troubles  to 
what  arises  as  the  boots  get  into  wear. 
Then  it  is  the  pinch  comes  in  earnest.  Of 
these  troubles  of  the  worx  boot,  I  and 
my  friend,  before  he  desisted,  reckoned 
up  three  principal  classes. 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  11 

(i)  There  are  the  various  sorts  of 
chafe.  Worst  of  the  chafes  is  certainly 
the  heel  chafe,  when  something  goes 
wrong  with  the  upright  support  at  the 
heel.  This,  as  a  boy,  I  have  had  to  en- 
dure for  days  together;  because  there 
were  no  other  boots  for  me.  Then  there 
is  the  chafe  that  comes  when  that  inner 
lining  of  the  boot  rucks  up — very  like 
the  chafe  it  is  that  poor  people  are  al- 
ways getting  from  over-darned  and 
hastily-darned  socks.  And  then  there  is 
the  chafe  that  comes  from  ready-made 
boots  one  has  got  a  trifle  too  large  or 
long,  in  order  to  avoid  the  pinch  and 
corns.  After  a  little  while,  there  comes 
a  transverse  crease  across  the  loose-fitting 
forepart ;  and,  when  the  boot  stiffens  from 
wet  or  any  cause,  it  chafes  across  the  base 
of  the  toes.  They  have  you  all  ways. 
And  I  have  a  very  lively  recollection  too 


12  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

of  the  chafe  of  the  knots  one  made  to 
mend  broken  laces — one  cannot  be  always 
buying  new  laces,  and  the  knots  used  to 
work  inward.  And  then  the  chafe  of  the 
crumpled  tongue. 

(ii)  Then  there  are  the  miseries  that 
come  from  the  wear  of  the  sole.  There 
is  the  rick  of  ankle  because  the  heel  has 
gone  over,  and  the  sense  of  insecurity; 
and  there  is  the  miserable  sense  of  not 
looking  well  from  behind  that  many  peo- 
ple must  feel.  It  is  almost  always  pain- 
ful to  me  to  walk  behind  girls  who  work 
out,  and  go  to  and  fro,  consuming  much 
foot-wear,  for  this  very  reason,  that  their 
heels  seem  always  to  wear  askew.  Girls 
ought  always  to  be  so  beautiful,  most 
girls  could  be  so  beautiful,  that  to  see 
their  poor  feet  askew,  the  grace  of  their 
walk  gone,  a  sort  of  spinal  curvature  in- 
duced,  makes   me  wretched,   and   angry 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  13 

with  a  world  that  treats  them  so.  And 
then  there  is  the  working  through  of  nails, 
nails  in  the  shoe.  One  limps  on  manfully 
in  the  hope  presently  of  a  quiet  moment 
and  a  quiet  corner  in  which  one  may  ham- 
mer the  thing  down  again.  Thirdly, 
under  this  heading  I  recall  the  flapping 
sole.  My  boots  always  came  to  that 
stage  at  last;  I  wore  the  toes  out  first, 
and  then  the  sole  split  from  before  back- 
wards. As  one  walked  it  began  catching 
the  ground.  One  made  fantastic  paces 
to  prevent  it  happening;  one  was  dread- 
fully ashamed.  At  last  one  was  forced 
to  sit  by  the  wayside  frankly,  and  cut  the 
flap  away. 

(iii)  Our  third  class  of  miseries  we 
made  of  splitting  and  leaks.  These  are 
for  the  most  part  mental  miseries,  the  feel- 
ing of  shabbiness  as  one  sees  the  ugly 
yawn,  for  example,  between  toe  cap  and 


14  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

the  main  upper  of  the  boot;  but  they  in- 
volve also  chills,  colds,  and  a  long  string  of 
disagreeable  consequences.  And  we  spoke 
too  of  the  misery  of  sitting  down  to  work 
(as  multitudes  of  London  school  children 
do  every  wet  morning)  in  boots  with  soles 
worn  thin  or  into  actual  holes,  that  have 
got  wet  and  chilling  on  the  way  to  the 
work-place  .  .  . 

From  these  instances  my  mind  ran  on 
to  others.  I  made  a  discovery.  I  had 
always  despised  the  common  run  of  poor 
Londoners  for  not  spending  their  Sun- 
days and  holidays  in  sturdy  walks,  the 
very  best  of  exercise.  I  had  allowed  my- 
self to  say  when  I  found  myself  one  sum- 
mer day  at  Margate:  "What  a  soft  lot 
all  these  young  people  must  be  who  loaf 
about  the  band-stand  here,  when  they 
might  be  tramping  over  the  Kentish  hills 
inland  I"     But  now  I  repented  me  of  that. 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  15 

Long  tramps  indeed !  Their  boots  would 
have  hurt  them.  Their  boots  would  not 
stand  it.     I  saw  it  all. 

And  now  my  discourse  was  fairly 
under  way.  "Ex  pede  Ilcrculem/'  I  said ; 
"these  miseries  of  boots  are  no  more  than 
a  sample.  The  clothes  people  wear  are 
no  better  than  their  boots ;  and  the  houses 
they  live  in  far  worse.  And  think  of  the 
shoddy  garment  of  ideas  and  misconcep- 
tions and  partial  statements  into  which 
their  poor  minds  have  been  jammed  by 
way  of  education!  Think  of  the  way 
that  pinches  and  chafes  them!  If  one 
expanded  the  miseries  of  these  things 
.  .  .  Think,  for  example,  of  the  results 
of  the  poor,  bad,  unwise  food,  of  badly- 
managed  eyes  and  ears  and  teeth!  Think 
of  the  quantity  of  toothache." 

"I  tell  you,  it  does  not  do  to  think  of 
such  things!"  cried  my  friend,  in  a  sort  of 


16  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

anguish ;  and  would  have  no  more  of  it  at 
any  price  .  .  . 

And  yet  in  his  time  he  had  written 
books  full  of  these  very  matters,  before 
despair  overtook  him. 


CHAPTER  II 

PEOPLE  WHOSE   BOOTS   DON'T 
HURT  THEM 

WELL,  I  did  not  talk  merely  to 
torment  him;  nor  have  I  written 
this  merely  to  torment  yon.  You  see  I 
have  a  persistent  persuasion  that  all  these 
miseries  are  preventable  miseries,  which  it 
lies  in  the  power  of  men  to  cure. 

Everybody  does  not  suffer  misery  from 
boots. 

One  person  I  know,  another  friend  of 
mine,  who  can  testify  to  that;  who  has 
tasted  all  the  miseries  of  boots,  and  who 
now  goes  about  the  world  free  of  them, 
but  not  altogether  forgetful  of  them. 
A  stroke  of  luck,  aided  perhaps  by  a  cer- 
tain alacrity  on  his  own  part,  lifted  him 
17 


18  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

out  of  the  class  in  which  one  buys  one's 
boots  and  clothes  out  of  what  is  left  over 
from  a  pound  a  week,  into  the  class  in 
which  one  spends  seventy  or  eighty 
pounds  a  year  on  clothing.  Sometimes 
he  buys  shoes  and  boots  at  very  good 
shops;  sometimes  he  has  them  made  for 
him;  he  has  them  stored  in  a  proper  cup- 
board, and  great  care  is  taken  of  them; 
and  so  his  boots  and  shoes  and  slippers 
never  chafe,  never  pinch,  never  squeak, 
never  hurt  nor  worry  him,  never  bother 
him;  and,  when  he  sticks  out  his  toes  be- 
fore the  fire,  they  do  not  remind  him  that 
he  is  a  shabby  and  contemptible  wretch, 
living  meanly  on  the  dust  heaps  of  the 
world.  You  might  think  from  this  he 
had  every  reason  to  congratulate  himself 
and  be  happy,  seeing  that  he  has  had  good 
follow  after  evil;  but,  such  is  the  oddness 
of  the  human  heart,  he  isn't  contented  at 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  iy 

all.  The  thought  of  the  multitudes  so 
much  worse  off  than  himself  in  this  matter 
of  foot-wear,  gives  him  no  sort  of  satisfac- 
tion. Their  boots  pinch  him  vicariously. 
The  black  rage  with  the  scheme  of  things 
that  once  he  felt  through  suffering  in  his 
own  person  in  the  days  when  he  limped 
shabbily  through  gaily  busy,  fashionable 
London  streets,  in  split  boots  that  chafed, 
he  feels  now  just  as  badly  as  he  goes 
about  the  world  very  comfortably  him- 
self, but  among  people  whom  he  knows 
with  a  pitiless  clearness  to  be  almost  in- 
tolerably uncomfortable.  He  has  no 
optimistic  illusion  that  things  are  all  right 
with  them.  Stupid  people  who  have  al- 
ways been  well  off,  who  have  always  had 
boots  that  fit,  may  think  that ;  but  not  so, 
he.  In  one  respect  the  thought  of  boots 
makes  him  even  more  viciously  angry 
now,  than  it  used  to  do.     In  the  old  days 


20  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

he  was  savage  with  his  luck,  but  hope- 
lessly savage;  he  thought  that  bad  boots, 
ugly  uncomfortable  clothes,  rotten  houses, 
were  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  Now, 
when  he  sees  a  child  sniffing  and  blubber- 
ing and  halting  upon  the  pavement,  or 
an  old  country-woman  going  painfully 
along  a  lane,  he  no  longer  recognises  the 
Pinch  of  Destiny.  His  rage  is  lit  by  the 
thought,  that  there  are  fools  in  this  world 
who  ought  to  have  foreseen  and  pre- 
vented this.  He  no  longer  curses  fate, 
but  the  dulness  of  statesmen  and  power- 
ful responsible  people  who  have  neither 
the  heart,  nor  courage,  nor  capacity,  to 
change  the  state  of  mismanagement  that 
gives  us  these  things. 

Now  do  not  think  I  am  dwelling  un- 
duly upon  my  second  friend's  good  for- 
tune, when  I  tell  you  that  once  he  was 
constantly    getting    pain   and   miserable 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  21 

states  of  mind,  colds  for  example,  from 
the  badness  of  his  clothing,  shame  from 
being  shabby,  pain  from  the  neglected 
state  of  his  teeth,  from  the  indigestion  of 
unsuitable  food  eaten  at  unsuitable  hours, 
from  the  insanitary  ugly  house  in  which 
he  lived  and  the  bad  air  of  that  part  of 
London,  from  things  indeed  quite  be- 
yond the  unaided  power  of  a  poor  over- 
worked man  to  remedy.  And  now  all 
these  disagreeable  things  have  gone  out 
of  his  life;  he  has  consulted  dentists  and 
physicians,  he  has  hardly  any  dull  days 
from  colds,  no  pain  from  toothache  at 
all,  no  gloom  of  indigestion.  .  .  . 

I  will  not  go  on  with  the  tale  of  good 
fortune  of  this  lucky  person.  My  pur- 
pose is  served  if  I  have  shown  that  this 
misery  of  boots  is  not  an  unavoidable 
curse  upon  mankind.  If  one  man  can 
evade  it,  others  can.     By  good  manage- 


22  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

ment  it  may  be  altogether  escaped.  If 
you,  or  what  is  more  important  to  most 
human  beings,  if  any  people  dear  to  you, 
suffer  from  painful  or  disfiguring  boots 
or  shoes,  and  you  can  do  no  better  for 
them,  it  is  simply  because  you  are  get- 
ting the  worse  side  of  an  ill-managed 
world.     It  is  not  the  universal  lot. 

And  what  I  say  of  boots  is  true  of  all 
the  other  minor  things  of  life.  If  your 
wife  catches  a  bad  cold  because  her  boots 
are  too  thin  for  the  time  of  the  year,  or 
dislikes  going  out  because  she  cuts  a 
shabby  ugly  figure,  if  your  children  look 
painfully  nasty  because  their  faces  are 
swollen  with  toothache,  or  because  their 
clothes  are  dirty,  old,  and  ill-fitting,  if  you 
are  all  dull  and  disposed  to  be  cross  with 
one  another  for  want  of  decent  amuse- 
ment and  change  of  air — don't  submit, 
don't  be  humbugged  for  a  moment  into 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  23 

believing  that  this  is  the  dingy  lot  of  all 
mankind.  Those  people  you  love  are  liv- 
ing in  a  badly -managed  world  and  on  the 
wrong  side  of  it ;  and  such  wretchednesses 
are  the  daily  demonstration  of  that. 

Don't  say  for  a  moment:  "Such  is  life." 
Don't  think  their  miseries  are  part  of 
some  primordial  curse  there  is  no  escap- 
ing. The  disproof  of  that  is  for  any  one 
to  see.  There  are  people,  people  no  more 
deserving  than  others,  who  suffer  from 
none  of  these  things.  You  may  feel  you 
merit  no  better  than  to  live  so  poorly  and 
badly  that  your  boots  are  always  hurting 
you;  but  do  the  little  children,  the  girls, 
the  mass  of  decent  hard-up  people,  de- 
serve no  better  fate? 


CHAPTER  III 

AT   THIS   POINT  A  DISPUTE  ARISES 

NOW  let  us  imagine  some  one  who 
will  dispute  what  I  am  saying.  I 
do  not  suppose  any  one  will  dispute  my 
argument  that  a  large  part  of  the  misery 
of  civilised  life — I  do  not  say  "all"  but 
only  a  "large  part" — arises  out  of  the  net- 
work of  squalid  insufficiencies  of  which 
I  have  taken  this  misery  of  boots  as  the 
simplest  example.  But  I  do  believe  quite 
a  lot  of  people  will  be  prepared  to  deny 
that  such  miseries  can  be  avoided.  They 
will  say  that  every  one  cannot  have  the 
best  of  things,  that  of  all  sorts  of  good 
things,  including  good  leather  and  cob- 
bling, there  is  not  enough  to  go  round, 
that  lower-class  people  ought  not  to  mind 

24 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  25 

being  shabby  and  uncomfortable,  that 
they  ought  to  be  very  glad  to  be  able  to 
live  at  all,  considering  what  they  are,  and 
that  it  is  no  good  stirring  up  discontent 
about  things  that  cannot  be  altered  or  im- 
proved. 

Such  arguments  are  not  to  be  swept 
aside  with  a  wave  of  the  hand.  It  is  per- 
fectly true  that  every  one  cannot  have  the 
best  of  things;  and  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
things  that  some  boots  should  be  better 
and  some  worse.  To  some  people,  either 
by  sheer  good  luck,  or  through  the 
strength  of  their  determination  to  have 
them,  the  exquisitely  good  boots,  those 
of  the  finest  leather  and  the  most  artistic 
cut,  will  fall.  I  have  never  denied  that. 
Nobody  dreams  of  a  time  when  every  one 
will  have  exactly  as  good  boots  as  every 
one  else;  I  am  not  preaching  any  such 
childish  and  impossible  equality.     But  it 


26  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

is  a  long  way  from  recognising  that  there 
must  be  a  certain  picturesque  and  inter- 
esting variety  in  this  matter  of  foot-wear, 
to  the  admission  that  a  large  majority  of 
people  can  never  hope  for  more  than  to 
be  shod  in  a  manner  that  is  frequently 
painful,  uncomfortable,  unhealthy,  or  un- 
sightly. That  admission  I  absolutely  re- 
fuse to  make.  There  is  enough  good 
leather  in  the  world  to  make  good  sightly 
boots  and  shoes  for  all  who  need  them, 
enough  men  at  leisure  and  enough  power 
and  machinery  to  do  all  the  work  required, 
enough  unemployed  intelligence  to  organ- 
ise the  shoemaking  and  shoe  distribution 
for  everybody.  What  stands  in  the  way  ? 
Let  us  put  that  question  in  a  rather 
different  form.  Here  on  the  one  hand 
— you  can  see  for  yourself  in  any  unfash- 
ionable part  of  Great  Britain — are  people 
badly,  uncomfortably,  painfully  shod,  in 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  27 

old  boots,  rotten  boots,  sham  boots;  and 
on  the  other  great  stretches  of  land  in  the 
world,  with  unlimited  possibilities  of  cat- 
tle and  leather  and  great  numbers  of  peo- 
ple, who,  either  through  wealth  or  trade 
disorder,  are  doing  no  work.  And  our 
question  is:  "Why  cannot  the  latter  set  to 
work  and  make  and  distribute  boots?" 

Imagine  yourself  trying  to  organise 
something  of  this  kind  of  Free  Booting 
expedition;  and  consider  the  difficulties 
you  would  meet  with.  You  would  begin 
by  looking  for  a  lot  of  leather.  Imagine 
yourself  setting  off  to  South  America, 
for  example,  to  get  leather;  beginning  at 
the  very  beginning  by  setting  to  work  to 
kill  and  flay  a  herd  of  cattle.  You  find 
at  once  you  are  interrupted.  Along 
comes  your  first  obstacle  in  the  shape  of  a 
man  who  tells  you  the  cattle  and  the 
leather  belong  to  him.     You  explain  that 


28  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

the  leather  is  wanted  for  people  who  have 
no  decent  boots  in  England.  He  says  he 
does  not  care  a  rap  what  you  want  it  for ; 
before  you  may  take  it  from  him  you  have 
to  buy  him  off;  it  is  his  private  prop- 
erty, this  leather,  and  the  herd  and  the 
land  over  which  the  herd  ranges.  You 
ask  him  how  much  he  wants  for  his 
leather;  and  he  tells  you  frankly,  just  as 
much  as  he  can  induce  you  to  give. 

If  he  chanced  to  be  a  person  of  excep- 
tional sweetness  of  disposition,  you  might 
perhaps  argue  with  him.  You  might 
point  out  to  him  that  this  project  of  giv- 
ing people  splendid  boots  was  a  fine  one 
that  would  put  an  end  to  much  human 
misery.  He  might  even  sympathise  with 
your  generous  enthusiasm;  but  you 
would,  I  think,  find  him  adamantine  in 
his  resolve  to  get  just  as  much  out  of  you 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  29 

for  his  leather  as  you  could  with  the  ut- 
most effort  pay. 

Suppose  now  you  said  to  him:  "But 
how  did  you  come  by  this  land  and  these 
herds,  so  that  you  can  stand  between  them 
and  the  people  who  have  need  of  them, 
exacting  this  profit?"  lie  would  prob- 
ably either  embark  upon  a  long  rigmarole, 
or,  what  is  much  more  probable,  lose  his 
temper  and  decline  to  argue.  Pursuing 
your  doubt  as  to  the  rightfulness  of  his 
property  in  these  things,  you  might  admit 
he  deserved  a  certain  reasonable  fee  for 
the  rough  care  he  had  taken  of  the  land 
and  herds.  But  cattle  breeders  are  a 
rude,  violent  race;  and  it  is  doubtful  if 
you  would  get  far  beyond  your  proposi- 
tion of  a  reasonable  fee.  You  would  in 
fact  have  to  buy  off  this  owner  of  the 
leather  at  a  good  thumping  price — he  ex- 


30  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

acting  just  as' much  as  he  could  get  from 
you — if  you  wanted  to  go  on  with  your 
project. 

Well,  then  you  would  have  to  get  your 
leather  here;  and,  to  do  that,  you  would 
have  to  bring  it  by  railway  and  ship  to 
this  country.  And  here  again  you  would 
find  people  without  any  desire  or  inten- 
tion of  helping  your  project,  standing  in 
your  course,  resolved  to  make  every  pos- 
sible penny  out  of  you  on  your  way  to 
provide  sound  boots  for  every  one.  You 
would  find  the  railway  was  private  prop- 
erty, and  had  an  owner  or  owners;  you 
would  find  the  ship  was  private  property, 
with  an  owner  or  owners;  and  that  none 
of  these  would  be  satisfied  for  a  moment 
with  a  mere;  fee  adequate  to  their  services. 
They  too  would  be  resolved  to  make  every 
penny  of  profit  out  of  you.  If  you  made 
inquiries   about   the  matter,   you   would 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  31 

probably  find  the  real  owners  of  railway 
and  ship  were  companies  of  shareholders, 
and  that  the  profit  squeezed  out  of  your 
poor  people's  boots  at  this  stage  went  to 
fill  the  pockets  of  old  ladies  at  Torquay, 
spendthrifts  in  Paris,  well-booted  gentle- 
men in  London  clubs,  all  sorts  of  glossy 
people.  .  .  . 

Well,  you  get  the  leather  to  England 
at  last;  and  now  you  want  to  make  it  into 
boots.  You  take  it  to  a  centre  of  popu- 
lation, invite  workers  to  come  to  you,  erect 
sheds  and  machinery  upon  a  vacant  piece 
of  ground,  and  start  off  in  a  sort  of  fury 
of  generous  industry,  boot-making.  .  .  . 
Do  you?  There  comes  along  an  owner 
for  that  vacant  piece  of  ground,  declares 
it  is  his  property,  demands  an  enormous 
sum  for  rent.  And  your  workers  all 
round  you,  you  find,  cannot  get  house 
room  until  they  too  have  paid  rent — every 


32  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

inch  of  the  country  is  somebody's  prop- 
erty, and  a  man  may  not  shut  his  eyes  for 
an  hour  without  the  consent  of  some 
owner  or  other.  And  the  food  your  shoe- 
makers eat,  the  clothes  they  wear,  have  all 
paid  tribute  and  profit  to  land-owners, 
cart-owners,  house-owners,  endless  tribute 
over  and  over  and  above  the  fair  pay  for 
work  that  has  been  done  upon  them.  .  .  . 
So  one  might  go  on.  But  you  begin 
to  see  now  one  set  of  reasons  at  least  why 
every  one  has  not  good  comfortable  boots. 
There  could  be  plenty  of  leather;  and 
there  is  certainly  plenty  of  labour  and 
quite  enough  intelligence  in  the  world  to 
manage  that  and  a  thousand  other  desir- 
able things.  But  this  institution  of  Pri- 
vate Property  in  land  and  naturally  pro- 
duced tilings,  these  obstructive  claims  that 
prevent  you  using  ground,  or  moving 
material,  and  that  have  to  be  bought  out 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  33 

at  exorbitant  prices,  stand  in  the  way. 
All  these  owners  hang  like  parasites  upon 
your  enterprise  at  its  every  stage;  and,  by 
the  time  you  get  your  sound  boots  well 
made  in  England,  you  will  find  them  cost- 
ing about  a  pound  a  pair — high  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  general  mass  of  people.  And 
you  will  perhaps  not  think  me  fanciful 
and  extravagant  when  I  confess  that 
when  I  realise  this,  and  look  at  poor  peo- 
ple's boots  in  the  street,  and  see  them 
cracked  and  misshapen  and  altogether 
nasty,  I  seem  to  see  also  a  lot  of  little 
phantom  land-owners,  cattle-owners, 
house-owners,  owners  of  all  sorts,  swarm- 
ing over  their  pinched  and  weary  feet  like 
leeches,  taking  much  and  giving  nothing, 
and  being  the  real  cause  of  all  such  mis- 
eries. 

Now  is  this  a  necessary  and  unavoid- 
able   thing? — that    is    our    question.     Is 


34  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

there  no  other  way  of  managing  things 
than  to  let  these  property-owners  exact 
their  claims,  and  squeeze  comfort,  pride, 
happiness,  out  of  the  lives  of  the  common 
run  of  people?  Because,  of  course,  it  is 
not  only  the  boots  they  squeeze  into  mean- 
ness and  badness.  It  is  the  claim  and 
profit  of  the  land-owner  and  house-owner 
that  make  our  houses  so  ugly,  shabby,  and 
dear,  that  make  our  roadways  and  rail- 
ways so  crowded  and  inconvenient,  that 
sweat  our  schools,  our  clothing,  our  food 
— boots  we  took  merely  by  way  of  one  ex- 
ample of  a  universal  trouble. 

Well,  there  are  a  number  of  people  who 
say  there  is  a  better  way  and  that  the 
world  could  be  made  infinitely  better  in 
all  these  matters,  made  happier  and  better 
than  it  ever  has  been  in  these  respects,  by 
refusing  to  have  private  property  in  all 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  35 

these  universally  necessary  things.  They 
say  that  it  is  possible  to  have  the  land  ad- 
ministered, and  such  common  and  needful 
things  as  leather  produced,  and  boots 
manufactured,  and  no  end  of  other  such 
generally  necessary  services  carried  on, 
not  for  the  private  profit  of  individuals, 
but  for  the  good  of  all.  They  propose 
that  the  State  should  take  away  the  land, 
and  the  railways,  and  shipping,  and  many 
great  organised  enterprises  from  their 
owners,  who  use  them  simply  to  squeeze 
the  means  for  a  wasteful  private  expendi- 
ture out  of  the  common  mass  of  men,  and 
should  administer  all  these  things,  gen- 
erously and  boldly,  not  for  profit,  but  for 
service.  It  is  this  idea  of  extracting 
profit  they  hold  which  is  the  very  root  of 
the  evil.  These  are  the  Socialists;  and 
they  are  the  only  people  who  do  hold  out 


36  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

any  hope  of  far-reaching  change  that  will 
alter  the  present  dingy  state  of  affairs, 
of  which  this  painful  wretchedness  of 
boots  is  only  one  typical  symbol. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IS   SOCIALISM    POSSIBLE? 

I  WILL  not  pretend  to  be  impartial 
in  this  matter,  and  to  discuss  as 
though  I  had  an  undecided  mind,  whether 
the  world  would  be  better  if  we  could 
abolish  private  property  in  land  and  in 
many  things  of  general  utility;  because  I 
have  no  doubt  left  in  the  matter.  I  be- 
lieve that  private  property  in  these  things 
is  no  more  necessary  and  unavoidable 
than  private  property  in  our  fellow-crea- 
tures, or  private  property  in  bridges  and 
roads.  The  idea  that  anything  and 
everything  may  be  claimed  as  private 
property  belongs  to  the  dark  ages  of  the 
world;  and  it  is  not  only  a  monstrous  in- 
justice, but  a  still  more  monstrous  incon- 
37 


3S  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

venience.  Suppose  we  still  admitted  pri- 
vate property  in  high  roads,  and  let  every 
man  who  had  a  scrap  of  high  road  haggle 
a  bargain  with  us  before  we  could  drive 
by  in  a  cab!  You  say  life  would  be  un- 
endurable. But  indeed  it  amounts  to 
something  a  little  like  that  if  we  use  a 
railway  now;  and  it  is  quite  like  that  if 
one  wants  a  spot  of  ground  somewhere 
upon  which  one  may  live.  I  see  no  more 
difficulty  in  managing  land,  factories,  and 
the  like,  publicly  for  the  general  good, 
than  there  is  in  managing  roads  and 
bridges,  and  the  post  office  and  the  police. 
So  far  I  see  no  impossibility  whatever  in 
Socialism.  To  abolish  private  property 
in  these  things  would  be  to  abolish  all 
that  swarm  of  parasites,  whose  greed  for 
profit  and  dividend  hampers  and  makes  a 
thousand  useful  and  delightful  enter- 
prises   costly    or    hopeless.      It    would 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  39 

abolish  them;  but  is  that  any  objection 
whatever? 

And  as  for  taking  such  property  from 
the  owners;  why  shouldn't  we?  The 
world  has  not  only  in  the  past  taken 
slaves  from  their  owners,  with  no  com- 
pensation or  with  a  meagre  compensa- 
tion; but  in  the  history  of  mankind,  dark 
as  it  is,  there  are  innumerable  cases  of 
slave-owners  resigning  their  inhuman 
rights.  You  may  say  that  to  take  away 
property  from  people  is  unjust  and  rob- 
bery; but  is  that  really  so?  Suppose  you 
found  a  number  of  children  in  a  nursery 
all  very  dull  and  unhappy  because  one 
of  them,  who  had  been  badly  spoilt,  had 
got  all  the  toys  together  and  claimed  them 
all,  and  refused  to  let  the  others  have  any. 
Would  you  not  dispossess  the  child,  how- 
ever honest  its  illusion  that  it  was  right 
to  be  greedy  ?     That  is  practically  the  po- 


40  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

sition  of  the  property-owner  to-day. 
You  may  say,  if  you  choose,  that  prop- 
erty-owners, land-owners  for  example, 
must  be  bought  out  and  not  robbed;  but 
since  getting  the  money  to  buy  them  out 
involves  taxing  the  property  of  some  one 
else,  who  may  possibly  have  a  better  claim 
to  it  than  the  land-owner  to  his,  I  don't 
quite  see  where  the  honesty  of  that  course 
comes  in.  You  can  only  give  property 
for  property  in  buying  and  selling;  and 
if  private  property  is  not  robbery,  then 
not  only  Socialism  but  ordinary  taxation 
must  be.  But  if  taxation  is  a  justifiable 
proceeding,  if  you  can  tax  me  (as  I  am 
taxed)  for  public  services,  a  shilling  and 
more  out  of  every  twenty  shillings  I  earn, 
then  I  do  not  see  why  you  should  not  put 
a  tax  upon  the  land-owner  if  you  want  to 
do  so,  of  a  half  or  two  thirds  or  all  his 
land,  or  upon  the  railway  share-holder  of 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  41 

ten  or  fifteen  or  twenty  shillings  in  the 
pound  on  his  shares.  In  every  change 
some  one  has  to  hear  the  brunt;  every  im- 
provement in  machinery  and  industrial 
organisation  deprives  some  poor  people 
of  an  income;  and  I  do  not  see  why  we 
should  be  so  extraordinarily  tender  to  the 
rich,  to  those  who  have  been  unproductive 
all  their  lives,  when  they  stand  in  the  way 
of  the  general  happiness.  And  though  I 
deny  the  right  to  compensation  I  do  not 
deny  its  probable  advisability.  So  far  as 
the  question  of  method  goes  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  we  may  partially  com- 
pensate the  property  owners  and  make  all 
sorts  of  mitigating  arrangements  to  avoid 
cruelty  to  them  in  our  attempt  to  end  the 
wider  cruelties  of  to-day. 

But,  apart  from  the  justice  of  the  case, 
many  people  seem  to  regard  Socialism 
as  a  hopeless  dream,  because,  as  they  put 


42  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

it,  "it  is  against  human  nature."  Every 
one  with  any  scrap  of  property  in  land, 
or  shares,  or  what  not,  they  tell  us,  will  be 
bitterly  opposed  to  the  coming  of  Social- 
ism; and,  as  such  people  have  all  the 
leisure  and  influence  in  the  world,  and  as 
all  able  and  energetic  people  tend  natur- 
ally to  join  that  class,  there  never  can  be 
any  effectual  force  to  bring  Socialism 
about.  But  that  seems  to  me  to  confess 
a  very  base  estimate  of  human  nature. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  a  number  of  dull, 
base,  rich  people  who  hate  and  dread 
Socialism  for  purely  selfish  reasons ;  but  it 
is  quite  possible  to  be  a  property  owner 
and  yet  be  anxious  to  see  Socialism  come 
to  its  own. 

For  example,  the  man  whose  private 
affairs  I  know  best  in  the  world,  the 
second  friend  I  named,  the  owner  of  all 
those  comfortable  boots,  gives  time  and 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  43 

energy  and  money  to  further  this  hope 
of  Socialism,  although  he  pays  income 
tax  on  twelve  hundred  a  year,  and  has 
shares  and  property  to  the  value  of  some 
thousands  of  pounds.  And  that  he  does 
out  of  no  instinct  of  sacrifice.  He  be- 
lieves he  would  be  happier  and  more  com- 
fortable in  a  Socialistic  state  of  affairs, 
when  it  would  not  be  necessary  for  him 
to  hold  on  to  that  life-belt  of  invested 
property.  He  finds  it — and  quite  a  lot 
of  well-off  people  are  quite  of  his  way  of 
thinking — a  constant  flaw  upon  a  life  of 
comfort  and  pleasant  interests  to  see  so 
many  people,  who  might  be  his  agreeable 
friends  and  associates,  detestably  under- 
educated,  detestably  housed,  in  the  most 
detestable  clothes  and  boots,  and  so  de- 
testably broken  in  spirit  that  they  will  not 
treat  him  as  an  equal.  It  makes  him  feel 
he  is  like  that  spoilt  child  in  the  nursery; 


44  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

he  feels  ashamed  and  contemptible;  and, 
since  individual  charity  only  seems  in  the 
long  run  to  make  matters*  worse,  he  is 
ready  to  give  a  great  deal  of  his  life,  and 
lose  his  entire  little  heap  of  possessions  if 
need  be,  very  gladly  lose  it,  to  change  the 
present  order  of  things  in  a  comprehen- 
sive manner. 

I  am  quite  convinced  that  there  are 
numbers  of  much  richer  and  more  influ- 
ential people  who  are  of  his  way  of  think- 
ing. Much  more  likely  to  obstruct  the 
way  to  Socialism  is  the  ignorance,  the 
want  of  courage,  the  stupid  want  of  im- 
agination of  the  very  poor,  too  shy  and 
timid  and  clumsy  to  face  any  change  they 
can  evade !  But,  even  with  them,  popular 
education  is  doing  its  work;  and  I  do  not 
fear  but  that  in  the  next  generation  we 
shall  find   Socialists  even  in  the   slums. 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  45 

The  unimaginative  person  who  owns  some 
little  bit  of  property,  an  acre  or  so  of 
freehold  land,  or  a  hundred  pounds  in  the 
savings  bank,  will  no  doubt  be  the  most 
tenacious  passive  resister  to  Socialistic 
ideas;  and  such,  I  fear,  we  must  reckon, 
together  with  the  insensitive  rich,  as  our 
irreconcilable  enemies,  as  irremovable  pil- 
lars of  the  present  order.  The  mean  and 
timid  elements  in  "human  nature"  are, 
and  will  be,  I  admit,  against  Socialism; 
but  they  are  not  all  "human  nature,"  not 
half  human  nature.  And  when,  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  world,  have  meanness 
and  timidity  won  a  struggle?  It  is  pas- 
sion, it  is  enthusiasm,  and  indignation 
that  mould  the  world  to  their  will — and  I 
cannot  see  how  any  one  can  go  into  the 
back  streets  of  London,  or  any  large 
British  town,  and  not  be  filled  up  with 


46  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

shame,  and  passionate  resolve  to  end  so 
grubby  and  mean  a  state  of  affairs  as  is 
displayed  there. 

I  don't  think  the  "human  nature"  argu- 
ment against  the  possibility  of  Socialism 
will  hold  water. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOCIALISM   MEANS  REVOLUTION 

LET  us  be  clear  about  one  thing:  that 
Socialism  means  revolution,  that  it 
means  a  change  in  the  every-day  texture 
of  life.  It  may  be  a  very  gradual 
change,  but  it  will  be  a  very  complete  one. 
You  cannot  change  the  world,  and  at  the 
same  time  not  change  the  world.  You 
will  find  Socialists  about,  or  at  any  rate 
men  calling  themselves  Socialists,  who 
will  pretend  that  this  is  not  so,  who  will 
assure  you  that  some  odd  little  jobbing 
about  municipal  gas  and  water  is  Social- 
ism, and  back-stairs  intervention  between 
Conservative  and  Liberal  the  way  to  the 
millennium.  You  might  as  well  call  a 
47 


48  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

gas  jet  in  the  lobby  of  a  meeting-house, 
the  glory  of  God  in  Heaven ! 

Socialism  aims  to  change,  not  only  the 
boots  on  people's  feet,  but  the  clothes 
they  wear,  the  houses  they  inhabit,  the 
work  they  do,  the  education  they  get,  their 
places,  their  honours,  and  all  their  possess- 
ions. Socialism  aims  to  make  a  new 
world  out  of  the  old.  It  can  only  be  at- 
tained by  the  intelligent,  outspoken,  cour- 
ageous resolve  of  a  great  multitude  of 
men  and  women.  You  must  get  abso- 
lutely clear  in  your  mind  that  Socialism 
means  a  complete  change,  a  break  with 
history,  with  much  that  is  picturesque; 
whole  classes  will  vanish.  The  world  will 
be  vastly  different,  with  a  different  sort 
of  houses,  different  sorts  of  people.  All 
the  different  trades  and  industries  will  be 
changed,  the  medical  profession  will  be 
carried  on  under  different  conditions,  en- 


THIS  MISERY  OF   BOOTS  i!» 

gineering,  science-,  the  theatrical  trade, 
the  clerical  trade,  schools,  hotels,  almost 
every  trade,  will  have  to  undergo  as  com- 
plete an  internal  change  as  a  caterpillar 
does  when  it  becomes  a  moth.  If  you  are 
afraid  of  so  much  change  as  that,  it  is 
better  you  should  funk  about  it  now  than 
later.  The  whole  system  has  to  be 
changed,  if  we  are  to  get  rid  of  the  masses 
of  dull  poverty  that  render  our  present 
state  detestable  to  any  sensitive  man  or 
woman.  That,  and  no  less,  is  the  aim  of 
all  sincere  Socialists:  the  establishment  of 
a  new  and  better  order  of  society  by  the 
abolition  of  private  property  in  land,  in 
natural  productions,  and  in  their  exploita- 
tion— a  change  as  profound  as  the  aboli- 
tion of  private  property  in  slaves  would 
have  been  in  ancient  Rome  or  Athens.  If 
you  demand  less  than  that,  if  you  are  not 
prepared  to  struggle  for  that,  you  arc  not 


50  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

really  a  Socialist.  If  you  funk  that,  then 
you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  square 
your  life  to  a  sort  of  personal  and  private 
happiness  with  things  as  they  are,  and 
decide  with  my  other  friend  that  "it 
doesn't  do  to  think  about  boots." 

It  is  well  to  insist  upon  one  central  idea. 
Socialism  is  a  common-sense,  matter-of- 
fact  proposal  to  change  our  conventional 
admission  of  what  is  or  is  not  property, 
and  to  re-arrange  the  world  according  to 
these  revised  conceptions.  A  certain 
number  of  clever  people,  dissatisfied  with 
the  straightforwardness  of  this,  have  set 
themselves  to  put  it  in  some  brilliant  ob- 
scure way;  they  will  tell  you  that  Social- 
ism is  based  on  the  philosophy  of  Hegel, 
or  that  it  turns  on  a  theory  of  Rent,  or 
that  it  is  somehow  muddled  up  with  a  sort 
of  white  Bogey  called  the  Overman,  and 
all  sorts  of  brilliant,  nonsensical,  unap- 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  51 

petising  things.  The  theory  of  Social- 
ism, so  far  as  English  people  are  con- 
cerned, seems  to  have  got  up  into  the 
clouds,  and  its  practice  down  into  the 
drains;  and  it  is  well  to  warn  inquiring 
men,  that  neither  the  epigram  above  nor 
the  job  beneath  are  more  than  the  acci- 
dental accompaniments  of  Socialism.  So- 
cialism is  a  very  large,  but  a  plain,  honest, 
and  human  enterprise;  its  ends  are  to  be 
obtained  neither  by  wit  nor  cunning,  but 
by  outspoken  resolve,  by  the  self-abnega- 
tion, the  enthusiasm,  and  the  loyal  co- 
operation of  great  masses  of  people. 

The  main  thing,  therefore,  is  the  crea- 
tion of  these  great  masses  of  people  out 
of  the  intellectual  confusion  and  vague- 
ness of  the  present  time.  Let  me  sup- 
pose that  you  find  yourself  in  sympathy 
with  this  tract,  that  you,  like  my  second 
friend,  find  the  shabby  dullness,  the  posi- 


52  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

tive  misery  of  a  large  proportion  of  the 
population  of  our  world,  make  life  under 
its  present  conditions  almost  intolerable, 
and  that  it  is  in  the  direction  of  Social- 
ism that  the  only  hope  of  a  permanent 
remedy  lies.  What  are  we  to  do?  Ob- 
viously to  give  our  best  energies  to  mak- 
ing other  people  Socialists,  to  organising 
ourselves  with  all  other  Socialists,  irre- 
spective of  class  or  the  minor  details  of 
creed,  and  to  making  ourselves  audible, 
visible,  effectual  as  Socialists,  wherever 
and  whenever  we  can. 

We  have  to  think  about  Socialism,  read 
about  it,  discuss  it;  so  that  we  may  be 
assured  and  clear  and  persuasive  about  it. 
We  have  to  confess  our  faith  openly  and 
frequently.  We  must  refuse  to  be  called 
Liberal  or  Conservative,  Republican  or 
Democrat,  or  any  of  those  ambiguous 
things.     Everywhere  we  must  make  or 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  53 

join  a  Socialist  organisation,  a  club  or 
association  or  what  not,  so  that  we  may 
"count."  For  us,  as  for  the  early  Chris- 
tians, preaching  our  gospel  is  the  supreme 
duty.  Until  Socialists  can  be  counted, 
and  counted  upon  by  the  million,  little  will 
be  done.  When  they  are — a  new  world 
will  be  ours. 

Above  all,  if  I  may  offer  advice  to  a 
fellow-Socialist,  I  would  say:  Cling  to 
the  simple  essential  idea  of  Socialism, 
which  is  the  abolition  of  private  property 
in  anything  but  what  a  man  has  earned 
or  made.  Do  not  complicate  your  cause 
with  elaborations.  And  keep  in  your 
mind,  if  you  can,  some  sort  of  talisman 
to  bring  you  back  to  that  essential  gospel, 
out  of  the  confusions  and  warring  sug- 
gestions of  every-day  discussion. 

For  my  own  part,  I  have,  as  I  said  at 
the  beginning,  a  prepossession  with  boots ; 


54  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

and  my  talisman  is  this: — The  figure  of 
a  badly  fed  but  rather  pretty  little  girl  of 
ten  or  eleven,  dirty,  and  her  hands  coarse 
with  rough  usage,  her  poor  pretty  child's 
body  in  ungainly  rags,  and,  on  her  feet, 
big  broken-down  boots  that  hurt  her. 
And  particularly  I  think  of  her  wretched 
sticks  of  legs  and  the  limp  of  her  feet; 
and  all  those  phantom  owners  and  profit- 
takers  I  spoke  of,  thej'  are  there  about 
her  martyrdom,  leech-like,  clinging  to  her 
as  she  goes.  .  .  . 

I  want  to  change  everything  in  the 
world  that  made  that ;  and  I  do  not  great- 
ly care  what  has  to  go  in  the  process. 
Do  you? 

H.  G.  Wells  , 

[Here  is  just  a  bit  of  hard  fact  to  carry 
out  what  I  say.  It  is  a  quotation  from  a 
letter  from  a  workman  to  my  friend  Mr. 


THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS  55 

Chibzza  Money,  one  of  the  best  informed 
writers  upon  labour  questions  in  Eng- 
land: 

"  I  am  a  railway  man,  in  constant  work  at  30s. 
per  week.  I  am  the  happy,  or  otherwise,  father 
of  mx  healthy  children.  Last  year  I  bought 
twenty  pairs  of  boots.  This  year,  up  to  date,  I 
have  bought  ten  pairs,  costing  £2 ;  and  yet,  at 
the  present  time,  my  wife  and  five  of  the  children 
have  only  one  pair  each.  1  have  two  pairs,  both 
of  which  let  in  the  water;  but  I  see  no  prospect 
at  present  of  getting  new  ones.  I  ought  to  say, 
of  course,  that  my  wife  is  a  thoroughly  domesti- 
cated woman,  and  I  am  one  of  the  most  temper- 
ate of  men.  So  much  so,  that  if  all  I  spend  in 
luxuries  was  saved  it  would  not  buy  a  pair  of 
hoots  once  a  year.  But  this  is  the  point  I  want 
to  mention.  During  1903  my  wages  were  25s. 
6d  per  week;  and  I  then  had  the  six  children. 
My  next-door  neighbour  was  a  boot-maker  and 
repairer.  He  fell  out  of  work,  and  was  out  for 
months.  During  that  time,  of  course,  my  chil- 
dren's boots  needed  repairing  as  at  other  times. 
I  had  not  the  money  to  pay  for  them  being  re- 
paired, so  had  to  do  what  repairing  I  could  my- 


56  THIS  MISERY  OF  BOOTS 

self.  One  day  I  found  out  that  I  was  repairing 
boots  on  one  side  of  the  wall,  and  my  neighbour 
on  the  other  side  out  of  work,  and  longing  to  do 
the  work  I  was  compelled  to  do  myself.     .     .     ." 

The  wall  was  a  commercial  organisa- 
tion of  society  based  on  private  property 
in  land  and  natural  productions.  These 
two  men  must  work  for  the  owners  or 
not  at  all;  they  cannot  work  for  one  an- 
other. Food  first,  then  rent;  and  boots, 
if  you  can,  when  all  the  owners  are  paid.] 


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